Reasons for Designation
A nunnery was a settlement built to sustain a community of religious women.
Its main buildings were constructed to provide facilities for worship,
accommodation and subsistence. The main elements are the church and domestic
buildings arranged around a cloister. This central enclosure may be
accompanied by an outer court and gatehouse, the whole bounded by a precinct
wall, earthworks or moat. Outside the enclosure, fishponds, mills, field
systems, stock enclosures and barns may occur. The earliest English nunneries
were founded in the seventh century AD but most of these had fallen out of use
by the ninth century. A small number of these were later refounded. The tenth
century witnessed the foundation of some new houses but the majority of
medieval nunneries were established from the late 11th century onwards.
Nunneries were established by most of the major religious orders of the time,
including the Benedictines, Cistercians, Augustinians, Franciscans and
Dominicans. It is known from documentary sources that at least 153 nunneries
existed in England, of which the precise locations of only around 100 sites
are known. Few sites have been examined in detail and as a rare and poorly
understood medieval monument type all examples exhibiting survival of
archaeological remains are worthy of protection.
The priory of St Mary at Stainfield was the only nunnery of the Benedictine
order in the old county of Lincolnshire. The remains of the priory, together
with those of the post-Dissolution house and gardens which overlie it, have
never been excavated. Later activity on the site has been of limited impact,
overlying rather than destroying earlier remains. Substantial surviving
earthworks in the present park, and finds made in the raised area where both
the post-Dissolution house and conventual buildings stood, indicate a good
state of preservation below ground.
Details
The monument includes the remains of the Benedictine nunnery of Stainfield,
founded in the mid 12th century and dissolved in 1536. In 1538 it was granted
to Sir Robert Tyrwhitt whose descendants constructed a large house, park and
formal gardens on the site. The remains of the nunnery, including most of the
precinct, the site of the conventual buildings and a group of fishponds, are
therefore partly overlain by the remains of a post-Dissolution house with
associated buildings, gardens and other landscape features.
The conventual precinct originally occupied a roughly rectangular area
approximately 420m by 250m around the present Stainfield Hall. The precinct
boundary is represented on the north by Stainfield Beck, on the east by a
water-filled ditch and on the west by the course of the present road. Near
the centre of the precinct is a slightly raised area on which the present
church, dwellings and outbuildings stand. Finds of sculptural and
architectural fragments, including reticulated tracery of the 14th century,
indicate that this is the site of the priory church and other conventual
buildings.
In the northern half of the precinct is a group of fishponds, the largest of
which is over 200m long, relatively shallow and contains a small island.
Immediately to the north are three smaller ponds of rectangular shape
representing sorting or breeding tanks. To the west, three further ponds are
grouped around the foundations of a large rectangular building. These ponds
are interconnected and drain into the stream via an outlet channel on the
west. To the south of the main fishpond are the earth-covered foundations of
three rectangular buildings, the easternmost of which is interpreted as the
remains of a tower built in the early 18th century as a landscape feature in
the park of Stainfield Hall.
Overlying the site of the conventual buildings are the remains of a secular
mansion, first constructed in the 16th century and repeatedly altered
throughout the succeeding centuries. Immediately north of the present
Stainfield Hall, which is 19th century in date and Listed Grade II, lie above
ground, remain, including an 18th century stable block and a farm building,
both Listed Grade II, St Andrew's Church, Listed Grade II* and a gate pier,
Listed Grade II. Of these remains only the gate pier is included in the
scheduling, although the ground beneath all these features is included in the
scheduling. To the south of the Hall are the remains of part of the early 17th
century formal gardens, including a brick wall on the edge of a former kitchen
garden and bowling greens. Immediately to the east of the hall complex are the
remains of an early 18th century walled garden, including a brick wall on the
north and east, and an ornamental pond, now filled in, on the south. To the
east of the walled garden, in a small area of woodland, is a further
ornamental pond, still water-filled.
To the west of the present Hall is a double avenue of mature trees in an area
of pasture, bounded on the north and west by broad banks. The avenue is
traversed by a further bank running parallel to and approximately 50m from
that on the west. This is interpreted as an early 18th century landscape
feature, formed to create a vista from the Hall towards Barlings Abbey and
Lincoln Cathedral.
Stainfield priory was founded in the mid 12th century by Henry or William
Percy and was the only Benedictine nunnery in the old county of Lincolnshire.
It was a small, poor establishment intended to house up to 20 nuns. At
its dissolution in 1536 the last remaining nuns were transferred to Stixwould
priory. The house of the Tyrwhitt family, who occupied the site from 1538 to
the mid 18th century, was first completed in the 1580s and refurbished in 1611
and again in the early 18th century. It was largely dismantled in 1773 and
finally destroyed by fire in 1855. The present Stainfield Hall represents the
surviving half of a rebuilding of 1856.
All fences, road surfaces and standing walls and buildings are excluded from
the scheduling, apart from the brick walls to the east of the Hall surviving
from the 17th and 18th century gardens, and the gate pier. The ground beneath
the excluded features is, however, included in the scheduling.
MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.
